Capital assets means land, structures, equipment, intellectual property (e.g., software), and information technology (including IT service contracts) used by the Federal Government and having an estimated useful life of two years or more. See Appendix One of the Capital Programming Guide for a more complete definition of capital assets. Capital assets do not include items acquired for resale in the ordinary course of operations or items acquired for physical consumption, such as operating materials and supplies. Capital assets may be acquired in different ways: through purchase, construction, or manufacturing; through a lease-purchase or other capital lease (regardless of whether title has passed to the Federal Government); through an operating lease for an asset with an estimated useful life of two years or more; through a share-in-savings contract, when appropriate under section 210 of the E-Government Act of 2002; or through exchange. Policy on leases is contained in part I, section 33.1. Capital assets may or may not be capitalized (i.e., recorded in an entity's balance sheet) under Federal accounting standards. Capital assets do not include grants to State and local governments or other entities for acquiring capital assets (such as National Science Foundation grants to universities or Department of Transportation grants to AMTRAK) or intangible assets, such as the knowledge resulting from research and development or the human capital resulting from education and training. For more discussion on capital assets, you should consult the Capital Programming Guide (June 1997), a supplement to this circular. (2V6Q)

Managers manage assets and liabilities. Capital assets are the items on a balance sheet showing the book value of property owned (I.e., each asset that casts a shadow - but also includes ideas). (2UUY)

Land, structures, equipment, intellectual property (e.g., software), and information technology (including IT service contracts) used by the Federal Government and having an estimated useful life of two years or more. (2UV2)